Thankfully most bloopers, mistakes, and giggle fits do not happen on the air. However, after a newscast – while taping “updates” to play during the evening – a case of the giggles can happen. The stress and tension of being perfect during a live broadcast is off, and being able to relax a bit often plays out in bloopers.

Chuckle along with legendary WRAL news anchor team Charlie Gaddy and Bobbie Battista from the late ’70s. In 1981, Bobbie Battista joined CNN in Atlanta where she was a news anchor for many years. Charlie Gaddy retired from WRAL in 1994.

WRAL celebrated 60 years of broadcasting on December 15, 2016. In recognition of that anniversary, Scott Mason – better known as The Tar Heel Traveler – took viewers on a time travel, via black and white film footage, to witness several news events covered by WRAL during the early years.

A few of the highlights include President John F. Kennedy’s visit to the campus of UNC to WRAL News Director Bill Armstrong’s interview with NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong while he was training at the Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill. Meet Marlene Carole, WRAL’s first female weatherperson who used a chalkboard to write the high and low temperatures – with an eye-wink. Later we see WRAL transition to color and then lead the nation in HD technology.

This 1978 news promo shows Bobbie Battista when she was a nightside reporter for WRAL News. At that time, news was referred to as Action News 5.

Bobbie Battista was a legendary news anchor at WRAL. She started at the station in November, 1974. She started int the news department as a producer and then a reporter before becoming co-anchor with Charlie Gaddy during the late 70’s. Bobbie was recruited to CNN in Atlanta in 1981 and anchored CNN Headlines News before moving over to the main network, CNN, in 1988. For more information about Bobbie Battista, check out her bio on this website.

Barbara Ann “Bobbie” Battista was a producer, on-air host and primary evening news anchor at WRAL-TV from 1974 to 1981.

Battista joined WRAL-TV in 1974 as a secretary, but she quickly convinced station management to put her on the air in 1976. She produced and anchored the WRAL morning news and other special programming until 1977, when she joined Charlie Gaddy on the station’s 6:00 and 11:00 o’clock news. Gaddy and Battista formed the first male-female anchor team in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville television market.

Over the next four years WRAL achieved ratings dominance and in late 1981 Bobbie answered Ted Turner’s call to join a start-up cable network known as CNN. She was hired as one of the original anchors on CNN Headline News, but by 1986 Battista moved to CNN’s flagship cable channel where she became one of the network’s most recognizable stars.

During this time at CNN Battista also anchored a daily program for CNN International, making her the only anchor in CNN history to work at all three CNN networks. In 1998 Battista was chosen to host television’s first daily interactive talk show – Talkback Live.

Bobbie was interviewed by WRAL News anchor David Crabtree in 2006 for the 50th Anniversary of WRAL-TV. The video is “raw footage” from one camera angle and had not been edited showing the other camera angles. That is why you will see quick camera adjustments.

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Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc. is a diversified communications company founded in 1937. This website has two primary missions – to preserve CBC’s rich history and to make it accessible to the public.